Stephen Hawking and the enigma of women: the love of the first and the mistreatment of the second
All his knowledge of physics and mathematics fell short when trying to decipher the theorem of love
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Special: Stephen Hawking 1942-2018
“What intrigues you most about the universe?”
Stephen Hawking was asked. “Woman!” answered the famous astrophysicist without hesitation and blinking, his only way of activating that old and untransferable computerized voice.
All his knowledge of physics and mathematics, all his contributions in the field of relativity and black holes, fell effectively short when trying to decipher the love theorem.
The real “miracle” in Hawking’s life was his first wife, Jane Wilde, whom he met in Oxford at the age of 21, weeks before he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
Hawking was given two or three years to live. Jane, the mother of his three children, stood up to the disease and even resisted disconnecting the artificial respirator, in one of the frequent crises suffered by the scientist in his personal battle.
The other woman in Hawking’s life was a nurse, Elaine Mason, known variously as “the monster” or “the nightmare.”
The great mystery in the life of the author of A Brief History of Time remains how and why he fell in love with his personal caretaker of him, who would end up becoming his second wife of him.
Mason not only manipulated Hawking but systematically humiliated, beat, and abused him for a long decade.
As if he were a cat with nine lives, Hawking overcame the physical and emotional trauma (after passing through the hospital, where he was treated several times for bruises, cuts, and burns) with the publication of The Grand Design,
in which he dispelled any doubts about his creed: “It is not necessary to invoke God as the one who lit the fuse and created the universe.”
And as an affirmation of “independence,” he gave himself, back in 2007, a “zero-gravity” flight at NASA, where he took the famous photo with that smile of relief and happiness that would end up hanging in his office at the University of Cambridge.
In the last years of his life, Hawking was in the care of another woman, Judith Croasdell, whose main task was to ensure his health and maintain the scientist’s communication thread with the world.
Despite the insurmountable distance for years, the fate of Stephen Hawking was always linked to Jane, who as a catharsis wrote his memoir Towards Infinity, which would serve as inspiration for The Theory of Everything.
The two wanted to leave the troubled past behind and attended the premiere of the film together with Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones, who recreated their bittersweet love story on the giant screen, from the initial spark in 1963 to the painful separation in the mid-1950s. 90, and everything that came after.
“We were young enough to think we were immortal,” Jane wrote as she recalled that day, January 8, 1963, when the then Physics student invited her to her birthday.
“As eccentric as he was, I liked Stephen from the start. We were both shy around each other, but confident when we were together. At first, it was unthinkable that someone so young would have to face the perspective of his own death (. ..)
Over time and in the midst of the psychosis of the nuclear age, that idea ended up taking over us”.
In private, he once wrote, “it was very difficult to feel desire for someone whose body was like a holocaust victim with the needs of a child.” In the late 1980s, having overcome pneumonia and tracheotomy crisis (when Ella Hawking lost her voice),
she even confessed that she was tempted to commit suicide. “There were four of us in the marriage and that couldn’t last,” Jane, who speaks perfect Spanish, recognized overtime at the time she recalled her husband’s “episode” with the nurse and her own relationship with musician Jonathan Hellyer Jones, Who would you marry after the divorce?
Jane found solace in faith, in the face of the indomitable atheism of Hawking, whom she accused of using God “for commercial purposes” to sell books and of being “addicted to his fame”, behaving like “an almighty emperor” and turning his life in a kind of “peep show”.
Hawking’s turbulent relationship with nurse Elaine Mason alienated him not only from Jane but also from his own children.
The theory of everything, however, served to close the circle and occasionally reconvene the old and unusual family. Until the end of his days, and despite the relative stability of recent years,
Stephen continued without deciphering the greatest mystery in the universe, embodied in that woman who believes in miracles and who “naturally” prolonged his life.
